Your Permanent Tear

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  Scene 6

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  Scene 5

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  Scene 3

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  Scene 1

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  Scene 2

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  Scene 4

Inspiration

I always been incredibly deeply affected by stories that show how briefly knowing someone can still change you forever and a catalyst to my feelings are typical anime films. These anime films left a huge impact on me, but not because of how dramatic it is, bit mainly because I love how they can capture fleeting connections which can still leave permanent scars on someone emotionally. I wanted to explore this concept and make a program that is very simple and easy and the delve into the art and the emotions I can try and bring out.

What it does

Your Permanent Tear is a short, anime-inspired interactive narrative experience, where the user progresses through a sequence of illustrate scenes by using the arrow key or by clicking the mouse. There are no typical game mechanics but is intentionally left minimal so that the viewer controls the pacing of the story.

How we built it

I build the project solo using a very lightweight web-based program. I used Clip Studio Paint for all of the illustrated scenes, HTML, CSS, JS for the system, and VSCode for the IDE. The web app used a fullscreen layout with a black background and I made the scene transitions subtle with a slow fade to maintain a more cinematic feel. The user can click the arrow keys or click on to progress at their own pace. I thought about using more heavier engines like Unity but it just seemed extremely unnecessary and I wanted to keep the focus on art and narrative.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge was the scope of my art. Creating decent illustrations especially foe me takes a long time, and it was very easy to want to add more scenes so I had to be strict about limiting the number of images so I could completely each one without rushing. Another challenge was working solo which means I had to handle everything myself, from the art direction to the preparation to the application itself which was challenging but fine to deal with.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I was proud that I made as much art that I did in that short amount of time and I was able to complete something that I felt proud of making because of the art that took so long so being able to complete something like felt amazing.

What we learned

I learned how powerful having simple stuff can be. Interactions with the user don't need to be complex to be meaningful and giving the user control over pacing alone can create a decent emotional connection. I also gained more confidence in my web development and how quickly I finished off that aspect of the project and working on art for that long was good experience to have.

What's next for Your Permanent Tear

I would like to add subtle ambient sounds and branching pathways for sure. While I don't mind how simple it feels right now it also just feels a bit like a slideshow and so I think that adding a couple of more things would heavily improve the emotional connection I wanted to bring out.

Built With

• css
• html
• javascript
• vscode